Wishesh Magazine June 2016

The United States’ “revenue
raising” move to double the
fees for short-term H-1B and
L-1visas will be countered
during two-day consultations
beginning in Washington on
Wednesday.
“If they are using it as a
revenue resource raising
measure, then it opens the
Pandora’s box for us also to
generate money whenever
a difference exists between
the WTO’s applied and
bound rates,” a commerce
department official said.
“There is a general feeling
that when everyone is talking
of trade liberalisation, the US’
measure is trade restrictive.
Industry feels that this has hit
their operations,” the official
said.
The increase in H-1B and
L-1 visa fee issue has been
raised with the US at various
levels including by the Prime
Minister with the US President
and recently by the Finance
Minister with the US Trade
Representative, Commerce
and Industry Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman said.
In a letter to US Commerce
Secretary Penny Pritzker
and Deputy National
Security Advisor Caroline
Atkinson, the Commerce
and Industry Ministry had
said, “it was requested
not to incorporate such
discriminatory and punitive
measures into legislations
without due process of notice
and comment, as it would
seriously impede the on going
efforts to take the India-US
bilateral trade and investment
relationship forward”.
“India has also taken up the
matter on US visa fee hike in
the dispute settlement body of
the WTO,” she said.
With this legislation in place,
50:50 companies would now
need to pay an enhanced fee
of $4500 for each L-1 visa
and $4000 for each H-1B visa
as compared to $2250 and
$2000 previously.
JUNE 2016 | WWW.WISHESH.COM